The Sixth Development Plan (2017-2022) has assigned the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to prepare plans to make all Iranian schools smart and supply electronic textbooks, said the deputy communications minister for planning and strategic supervision.

Barat Qanbari added that Iran's international data transit capacity should increase to 30 terabyte per second (tb/s), and he called for the border provinces to prepare for this.

"Based on the Sixth Plan, reforms in the structure of Telecommunication Infrastructure Center and establishment of the international data transition firm have been placed on the ministry's agenda."

The official said the Sixth Plan has required the Communications Ministry to provide 80 percent of Iranian villages ― with more than 20 households ― with electronic services in the four fields of health, education, agriculture and banking.

He said the four services should also be made available to the people living in the cities with the population of under 20,000.

Qanbari noted that developing and completing the national data network is among the other responsibilities envisaged for the ministry.

"Data access speed should increase to 24 megabyte per second (mb/s) to help the country rank third in the Middle East in the field of electronification."

The official said the Sixth Plan also obliged the Communications Ministry to reduce the number of people calling at various organizations by 12.5 percent and improve Iran's global ranking in the field electronification by 30 places.

He said the Sixth Plan also envisaged an increase in the country's bandwidth capacity and development of web content, electronic services and communication network coverage.